Jim Wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And I still don't understand how that might alleviate the problem
of construing EN hAGIASMWi PNEUMATOS with EKLEKTOIS. Are you
suggesting that this might be interpreted such that the Holy Spirit
is the agent who elects according to the foreknowledge of the Father?
Hmmmmm...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This objection is answered in J.E. Huther's commentary (H.A.W. Meyer's
series) on page 205. First, Huther argues that EKLEKTOIS PAREPIDHMOIS
is to be taken as a unit signifying the state of the addressees not the
action of electing. He then argues that EN hAGIASMWi PNEUMATOS is
instrumentally related to that state. They were brought into the state
of being EKLEKTOIS PAREPIDHMOIS by hAGIASMWi PNEUMATOS.

J. Ramsey Michaels has an intriguing observation on EKLEKTOIS
PAREPIDHMOIS (pps. 6-7 of his commentary). Michaels states that the
addressees were exiles not primarily in the Jewish sense of the term,
(i.e., members of the dispora) but rather they were exiles from pagan
culture. This idea would fit nicely with seeing the instrumental force of
EN hAGIASMWi PNEUMATOS. The Holy Spirit had brought them into a
state of exile from paganism.